A message from the President, Dianne Whitehead (nee Hitchen).

Having been elected earlier in the day at the Annual General Meeting, your new president, Dianne Whitehead (nee Hitchen) responded to the toast to the President of the Association - proposed by Dianne's friend and fellow Old Arnoldian, Julie Jagger (nee Bradshaw - 1980 -1984) - and proposed the toast to the school as follows:-

"Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen; for those of you starting a sweep, I don't do speeches, long or short and this is a first, so bear that in mind.

Firstly I would like to thank Julie for her very generous toast to me.

I first met Julie when she joined Arnold in Year 4 having moved back here from Malawi, still very innocent and naive, but under my careful tutelage we managed to rectify that.

It's lovely to see so many faces here, some I haven't seen for many years and some I see daily but never here before. It's also nice to see so many younger members of the Old Arnoldians here tonight, you are our future and we look forward to seeing you at many more functions.

I joined Arnold Junior School in Year 4 in 1976 aged 10 yrs and moved over to the senior school in 1977, at that time (not including 6th form) there were about 45 girls; we were in our element. Now there are more girls than boys! My parents always said I treated school like a big social club and I did thoroughly enjoy it, it left me with a very strong passion for the school which remains with me today. I left school at 16 to go and train as a nursery nurse and later as a children's nurse at Alder Hey in Liverpool. Now after a complete turnaround I am director and company secretary of our family business in wholesale foodservice.

Over the years I have maintained my association with Arnold through the Old Arnoldians having been a member of the executive committee for 13 yrs; during that time I was treasurer for 6 years and having children at school I became involved with the PFA and I am on that committee too.

I am very proud to have been chosen as the 4th lady president, as many of you will know it has been a devastating year for me and my family; nevertheless I look forward to my year as president and to attending functions and sporting events in this capacity.

I look forward to meeting many of you at these events and encourage you to create and maintain links with other Old Arnoldians by making use of Arnoldians Online

At this point I would like to thank the school and the wider Arnold family for all their support in the last few months.

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